Shy visitor loves marshy havens
Birdwatchers learn from an early age how chasing wildfowl is a cold and wintry pursuit.
The first nippy bites of autumn bring ducks, geese and wild swans to our wetlands and coastal shallows to escape the frigid wastes of the Arctic.
By spring, vast flocks in V-formations are heading back to remote nesting grounds in Iceland, Scandinavia and Siberia.
The traffic is all one-way. Well, almost. If you are looking for a good pub quiz question, then ask which migratory duck comes to the United Kingdom to breed in summer?
The answer is the garganey, a shy relative of the teal that spends winters in tropical Africa and arrives in small numbers from late March to nest in the marshy margins of freshwater meres.
This spring, however, birdwatchers have been enjoying flocks of up to 30 birds passing coastal headlands along the English Channel and also settling in good numbers on wetlands across southern counties.
Close scrutiny of the handsome male garganey reveals plumage with subtle shades of grey and brown worked into intricate swirling patterns. Dowdy females are camouflaged to protect them and their broods during the nesting season.
Latest data from the Rare Breeding Birds Panel shows between 30 and 136 pairs nested in the UK in 2019, indicating that the British population has been relatively stable in recent years.
Watching massive flocks of hundreds of garganey assembling in the uppermost reaches of the Red Sea at dusk, before they headed north through the Jordan Rift
Valley under cover of darkness, remains one of my most vivid memories of birding in the Middle East.
Those garganey were destined for the marshlands of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, home for 80% of the European breeding population. Already suffering declines for environmental reasons, what impact the present conflict in this troubled region will have on global garganey numbers remains to be seen.
The British population has been relatively stable in recent years